Effects of Alloying Elements in Steel

Steel is basically iron alloyed to carbon with certain additional

elements to give the required properties to the finished melt.
Listed below is a summary of the effects various alloying elements
in steel.
Carbon
The basic metal, iron, is alloyed with carbon to make steel and
has the effect of increasing the hardness and strength by heat
treatment but the addition of carbon enables a wide range of
hardness and strength.
Manganese
Manganese is added to steel to improve hot working properties
and increase strength, toughness and hardenability. Manganese,
like nickel, is an austenite forming element and has been used as
a substitute for nickel in the A.I.S.I 200 Series of Austenitic
stainless steels (e.g. A.I.S.I 202 as a substitute for A.I.S.I 304)
Chromium
Chromium is added to the steel to increase resistance to
oxidation. This resistance increases as more chromium is added.
'Stainless Steel' has approximately 11% chromium and a very
marked degree of general corrosion resistance when compared
with steels with a lower percentage of chromium. When added to
low alloy steels, chromium can increase the response to heat
treatment, thus improving hardenability and strength.
Nickel
Nickel is added in large amounts, over about 8%, to high
chromium stainless steel to form the most important class of
corrosion and heat resistant steels. These are
the austenitic stainless steels, typified by 18-8, where the
tendency of nickel to form austenite is responsible for a great
toughness and high strength at both high and low temperatures.

Nickel also improves resistance to oxidation and corrosion. It

increases toughness at low temperatures when added in smaller
amounts to alloy steels.

Molybdenum
Molybdenum, when added to chromium-nickel austenitic steels,
improves resistance to pitting corrosion especially by chlorides
and sulphur chemicals. When added to low alloy steels,
molybdenum improves high temperature strengths and hardness.
When added to chromium steels it greatly diminishes the
tendency of steels to decay in service or in heat treatment.
Titanium
The main use of titanium as an alloying element in steel is for
carbide stabilisation. It combines with carbon to for titanium
carbides, which are quite stable and hard to dissolve in steel, this
tends to minimise the occurrence of inter-granular corrosion, as
with A.I.S.I 321, when adding approximately 0.25%/0.60%
titanium, the carbon combines with the titanium in preference to
chromium, preventing a tie-up of corrosion resisting chromium as
inter-granular carbides and the accompanying loss of corrosion
resistance at the grain boundaries.
Phosphorus
Phosphorus is usually added with sulphur to improve
machinability in low alloy steels, phosphorus, in small amounts,
aids strength and corrosion resistance. Experimental work shows
that phosphorus present in austeniticstainless steels increases
strength. Phosphorus additions are known to increase the
tendency to cracking during welding.
Sulphur

When added in small amounts sulphur improves machinability

but does not cause hot shortness. Hot shortness is reduced by the
addition of manganese, which combines with the sulphur to form
manganese sulphide. As manganese sulphide has a higher
melting point than iron sulphide, which would form if manganese
were not present, the weak spots at the grain boundaries are
greatly reduced during hot working.
Selenium
Selenium is added to improve machinability.
Niobium (Columbium)
Niobium is added to steel in order to stabilise carbon, and as such
performs in the same way as described for titanium. Niobium also
has the effect of strengthening steels and alloys for high
temperature service.
Nitrogen
Nitrogen has the effect of increasing the austenitic stability of
stainless steels and is, as in the case of nickel, an austenite
forming element. Yield strength is greatly improved when nitrogen
is added to austenitic stainless steels.
Silicon
Silicon is used as a deoxidising (killing) agent in the melting of
steel, as a result, most steels contain a small percentage of silicon.
Silicon contributes to hardening of the ferritic phase in steels and
for this reason silicon killed steels are somewhat harder and
stiffer than aluminium killed steels.
Cobalt
Cobalt becomes highly radioactive when exposed to the intense
radiation of nuclear reactors, and as a result, any stainless steel
that is in nuclear service will have a cobalt restriction, usually
aproximately 0.2% maximum. This problem is emphasised

because there is residual cobalt content in the nickel used in

producing these steels.
Tantalum
Chemically similar to niobium and has similar effects.
Copper
Copper is normally present in stainless steels as a residual
element. However it is added to a few alloys to produce
precipitation hardening properties.